Hello everyone!
This week has been focused on preparing for the end-of-month release, which is scheduled for Tuesday next week. Most of my time has gone into fixing issues, polishing existing systems, and making sure this update is as solid as possible.
Over the past couple of months, NeonStrip has grown significantly in both size and complexity. As the project continues to expand, development naturally becomes more challenging. Even so, I'm committed to continuing development, and I genuinely believe the work being done now is laying the foundation for something much bigger. I think the upcoming release—and the updates that follow—will really begin to show the direction the game is heading.
World Improvements
A large amount of work this week went into improving the island itself.
I've been fixing problems with roads, NPC behavior, dialogue, and terrain across the map. Many areas of the island have received noticeable improvements to make exploration feel more natural and immersive.
One issue I especially wanted to solve was the distant tree rendering. Previously, trees would appear as little more than thin trunks in the distance, making the landscape feel sparse. After reworking the vegetation, trees now render much more naturally from afar, making forests look full instead of empty.
I've also continued adding more vegetation throughout the island. The environment feels much denser now, and driving around the map gives a much stronger impression of exploring a tropical island rather than wide open empty spaces.
Performance & 4K Improvements
This month's update also continues improving support for higher resolutions.
Some of the work completed includes:
Better UI scaling for 4K displays.
Performance improvements while playing at 4K resolution.
Continued optimization by replacing strand-based hair with hair cards.
Additional hairstyles have now been converted to the new system, helping improve overall performance.
These changes are part of an ongoing optimization effort that should continue improving performance over the coming updates.
Thank you all once again for supporting NeonStrip. Your support allows me to continue expanding the game every month.
I'm looking forward to releasing this month's build on Tuesday, and I can't wait to show you everything that's been improved.
Thank you for following the development journey, and I hope you enjoy the upcoming release!
— Blast